New Civic Offices: Council Climbdown

Special Meeting To Approve U-Turn: Central Library To Be New Customer Centre?


Reading Council will effectively abandon it's grand plans for a £60million replacement for the crumbling civic offices at a special council meeting next week.

Previous plans for a new offices in Hosier Street are to be de-coupled from future development plans, to allow a more speedy solution to be found.

Independent Councillor Tony Jones, who first called into question the then all-party support for the original plans in June 2008, said he welcomed this common sensense change of approach.

Cllr Jones said "I have long called for the existing Town Hal to be used, together with a town centre customer hub and back office staff in other existing offices in Reading town centre. While the council leadership has opposed and fought these ideas, one by one they have having to now agree with me. I suspect, though I don't know, that the new customer centre will be moved to the central library site." (25Nov09)

MP expenses: reforms do not go far enough

WHILE LOCAL PARLIAMENTARY HOPEFULS tow the party line on the propsed measures to clean up parliament, I believe that the reforms do not go far enough.

Following the public disclosure of all the scams MPs had been up to, Sir Christopher Kelly has brought forward new recommendations, including a ban on MPs claiming for mortgage interest payments on second homes, on flipping homes and on employing family members.

However, Kelly has missed a golden opportunity to make MPs more like public servants rather small business people. I used to be amazed going into many MP's Constituency Offices that they were responsible for the whole thing - finding the place, recruiting and paying the staff, and everything else, down to paying for the paperclips, newspapers and milk bills. I never believed that this was a good use of their time nor what we were paying them to do.

Surely it would be better to have a permanent, civil service staffed office for each MP. This should not be at an MP's home, but highly visible and accessible. On being elected, they could arrive and be given their keys and on leaving, after retiring or losing an election, they could pack up their papers in a box and hand their keys back. As the Mayor, that's how it is and surely that would be better for our MPs too.

Too Many Lazy Councillors

EARLIER IN THE YEAR I proposed that the number of paid councillors on Reading Borough Council could be reduced without any reduction in service to the public. The idea was met with howls of anger from many councillors, claiming that if anything, the town was under-represented.

They also argued that the numbers were needed to help share-out the heavy work-load created by constituents.So they kicked the money-saving idea in to the long grass. But now the latest release of official case-work figures shows what a lie this is.

As ever Councillors Page and Benson top the list, but many others appear to be doing next to nothing.

The Top 10 Case loads between July and October 2009 were:

Tony Page (LAB, Deputy Leader) - ABBEY - 69
Daisy Benson (Lib Dem) - REDLANDS - 50
Gareth Epps (Lib Dem) - KATESGROVE - 47
Mike Orton (LAB) - WHITLEY - 35
Glenn Goodall (Lib Dem) - REDLANDS - 32
Tony Jones (IND) - BATTLE - 28
Ricky Duveen (Lib Dem) - TILEHURST - 24
Tom Steel (CON) - KENTWOOD - 22
Kirsten Bayes (Lib Dem) - REDLANDS - 21
Mark Ralph (CON) - PEPPARD - 20
So, for example, in Abbey Ward there were a total of 81 cases. As hard working Deputy Leader Tony Page accounted for 69 of these, a total of just 12 cases were submitted by the other two Abbey councillors. Would losing one of them be missed? Similar patterns exist in other wards.

However, the figures show the following average number of cases by political affiliation:

Independent - 28 cases per councillor
Lib Dem - 23 cases
Labour - 11 cases
Conservatives - 9 cases

TVU quits town: Home for new East Reading School?

EARLIER IN THE YEAR Reading Borough Council conducted a review of secondary school provision in the town. At the time it identified the need for a new Secondary School in East Reading, but said no site could be found.

Now with the news that Thames Valley University is leaving Reading their vacated sites at the Kings Road and Crescent Road could be used to provide a new secondary school within the borough boundary.

For too long Reading pupils have needed to go to schools in Wokingham, where the council has no influence. Now that TVU are pulling out, the council should seize the opportunity and open a new school for East Reading.

Bath Road: Council Scrambles To Avoid Planning Humiliation

IN A HIGHLY unusual move, Reading Council Planning Committee is being asked on to meet again on Wednesday 4th November "to define the exact terms upon which they have rejected Thames Water’s applications".

It is said that councillors want to ensure that all rejections to the proposal are ‘watertight’in the face of an expected strong appeal by Thames Water against what to many was a political rather than planning decision.

The professional planning officers had recommended to councillors that the application to building housing on the private and unused West Reading site should be approved. Instead at the first meeting, councillors and others queued up to play to the public gallery amid much merriment - except that the Thames Water representatives were chuckling as each new contribution made their appeal easier and more certain.

Next time there are to be no long speeches or debates, the conversations we are told should be short and swift as the committee will just be stating the detailed grounds for rejection.

What is clear is that the Council's Planning and Legal officers have told the councillors what a weak position their theatrical antics have put them in - and so now they are all trying to remedy a desperate position. These poor representatives, some of the most senior people on the council, have let the Bath Road campaigners down and left the door wide open for Thames Water.

Posturing Wannabees Prostitute For Votes

AS THE GANG of wannabe Reading West politicians line up to elbow each other out of the way to get to the front of the queue for election photo opportunities, they have to answer one question: When they say 'No homes here, never' do they mean it, do they believe it?

Reading's only Independent Councillor Tony Jones has said 'It is so disappointing to see otherwise reasonable intelligent candidates prostitute themselves, grovelling for votes when they must know that they are knowingly misleading local residents. Either that or their judgements aren't anchored in reality.'

In west Reading two proposals have been to the fore front of the news with all political corners pledging support to campaigns against any housing developments. But Tony Jones has laid down a challenge to them saying ' I'd wager any charity bet that both at Bath Road and Pincents Hill will see housing be built within the life of the next Parliament.'

'This is more important than any party political bravado and trying to say what you think people want to hear you say. The reality is that both sites will see development, so I would rather see real discussion about what is reasonable and eventually acceptable, rather than trying to build a blockade of emotion which will not serve anyone in the long run.' said Tony Jones.

Jones Not To Seek Election

READING'S ONLY Independent Councillor has announced that he will not be seeking election to the council in 2010.

Councillor Tony Jones, who represents Battle Ward in west Reading, has said he will not be contesting the seat when it next comes up for election in May.

The former Mayor who left the Labour Party in 2008 said "I was first elected in 1984 when I was in my 20s and have sat in the Reading Council chamber in my 30s, 40s and now into my 50s. Having had the pleasure to serve Battle ward since 1999, I have decided to rethink how, if at all, I may be able to further contribute to public service in Reading."

Over recent years Cllr Jones has been outspoken and sometimes controversial in his views - arguing against the plans for a £60 million new civic centre, calling for the reduction in the number of councillors by a third, fighting for a new health centre in Battle ward, against a £100,000 art installation and demanding new leadership at Battle Primary when the school fell back into special measures.

A former chair of Reading Buses and leader of a hugely successful campaign to open up over 500 empty homes in Reading, Cllr Jones also raised a record £55,000 for charity when Mayor in 2001/2. As Mayor he also controversially offered to pay the parking fines of war veterans who had been ticketed by the council while attending a Battle of Britain rememberance ceremony.

He also initiated the town twinning with Speightstown, Barbados and raised money for the Pakistan earthquake appeal. Cllr Jones has also been a tiressless campaigner against street prostitution and drug dealing in the Oxford Road.

Cllr Jones will be continuing with his twice a month ward surgeries at Battle Library and is adding a third at Oxford Road Community Centre.

Footnote: When Tony Jones was first elected on 3 May 1984, Phil Collins was No.1 in the charts with "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" ...